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The RSC (Royal Society of Chemistry) ran a campaign when I was an undergrad which had the slogan “not all chemists wear white coats” and various images to demonstrate this. One of which was a scuba diving chemist, collecting samples for analysis I presume. I shared your reaction PZ. Not the inadequate bit*, just the envy bit. I love me some lab, don’t get me wrong, but scuba and boats and sea? Yeah. I’d like a few more days of that in my work schedule. Beats the piss out of meetings.

Louis

* Inadequate? Lab work? Pfffffffff, you knock a natural product with a few contiguous quaternary carbon centres** (for example) together and then tell me you feel inadequate!

** Proper ones, none of your heteroatomic nonsense. Something that could have the word “neopentyl” in it. Youth of today, with their “Oh look I’ve put a nitrogen on a carbon with three other carbons attached to it, it’s got no hydrogen, that’s a quaternary carbon that is” rot. Back in my day we called that an amine and not quaternary at all. Yes we were technically wrong but we had it rough it was uphill both ways to the lab. In the snow. And all the reactions were thermodynamically unfavourable with abysmal kinetics. And there were no catalysts because they weren’t invented yet. And delivery from Aldrich took months because things were hand carted across continents. Spectrometer time? Are you kidding me? Tell that to the chemists of today and they wouldn’t believe you. {Drone waffle rhubarb, get off my lawn etc}

I’ve read three of his books: Out of Thin Air: Dinosaurs, Birds, and Earth’s Ancient Atmosphere,
Gorgon: Paleontology, Obsession, and the Greatest Catastrophe in Earth’s History, and Rivers in Time. I like his writing style.

Sorry, PZed, I haven’t read any of your books yet.

Though, to be fair, I haven’t read any books on atheism or freethought. Sorry.

You’ve been a general publicly fighting on the front lines against the seemingly limitless resources of institutionalized superstition and ignorance for how many years now? Nobly suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous ignorance, privileged obtuseness, and wanton uncouthness from the entrenched patriarchal poison that our society is steeping in.

Nothing inadequate about that.

Although, as a mere reader, perhaps I should curl of in the corner of shame. Darn it.

Don’t worry, PZ. You may not have had as colorful a career, but your writing is an order of magnitude more clear and less overwrought. And your website doesn’t have a stupid overlay on the top so that the space bar advances more than a visible page.